Buck Hits: The Weekend, No Redd til March

Three in a row from your Milwaukee Bucks, who now face a 3 game west coast swing against sub-.500 teams. Very possible they could go off for three more, but before we get too far, realize that they’re up against Blake Rookie of the Year Griffin tonight. But before we concern ourselves with that, let’s look at what went down this weekend.

John Hollinger’s rating system has the Bucks at 15th best in the NBA. Look at it this way Bucks fans, Hollinger thinks we’re better than half of the teams in the league. Not too shabby all things considered.

Marc Stein at ESPN.com doesn’t believe the Bucks are out of the hunt yet, even with ranking them 20th in the league. Stein is calling the Bucks a top 7 team in the East after half a season.

A couple weeks after being the #1 dissapointment, the writers at NBA.com think the Bucks aren’t any better than 21st in the NBA. I think I’m becoming a John Hollinger fan.

The Rest

Charles Gardner delves into the doubt revolving around Andrew Bogut’s all-star campaign. In a league where Yao Ming is a starter for the West’s All Star tea, it doesn’t surprise me that Bogut is being overlooked. That said, I’ll regurgitate what serious NBA fans have been calling for forever; a revamped All Star voting process.

Tom Enlund has a good piece on the Bucks opportunities moving forward, including some insight from Coach Skiles, “We’ve talked about it. We feel like this is as good a time as any for us to make a legitimate move.” Carpe Diem, deer, carpe diem.

Before the season began, Michael Redd was to be out due to injury until February. Now, word on the street is Mike Redd is aiming for a March return to the Bucks. Scott Skiles promptly spoke out regarding Redd’s return speech in Tom Enlund’s piece over at Jsonline.com. “If there’s a point where he’s ready and cleared by everybody and he’s working with the guys, and it’s time to start playing again, then we’ll cross that when it happens.” Sounds like Skiles is focused on the team as assembled, and that’s the way it should be. In reality, it is best that Redd won’t be ready until March. If he was ready now, Skiles would’ve faced pressure from the former franchise player to get minutes. In addition, GM John Hammond could’ve used the month of February to showcase Redd to the rest of the league for a deadline-day trade. A Redd February was a big distraction the Bucks needed to avoid, and now thanks to Redd himself, they don’t have to.

Brian Matzat is a contributor to Bucksketball.com. Follow him on Twitter. Then become a fan of Bucksketball on Facebook (click in the sidebar).